Topic: iPhone Software 4.0

Apple has hung even more banners inside the Moscone Center in San Francisco for its forthcoming Worldwide Developer Conference, but they don't reveal any details about what the company plans to announce on Monday.

Apple's fourth-generation iPhone could go on sale as early as June, according to a new report which mentions that AT&T has blacked out the month for vacation days in apparent preparation for the handset's launch.

Packed with more than 100 new features, Apple's forthcoming iPhone OS 4 update brings changes both major and subtle to the existing integrated applications. Included are a look at changes to the Photos and iPod applications, as well as the new Folders feature.

A couple of new discoveries were made this past weekend by developers familiarizing themselves with the first external beta of Apple's iPhone 4.0 operating system, namely the addition of a linked contacts feature and the presence of iChat sounds in the resource files.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs allegedly responded via e-mail to a developer who expressed his unhappiness with changes to the developer program license agreement for the iPhone 4.0 software development kit.

The "Google" button that appears on the soft keyboards of existing iPhones when conducting a Web search has been changed to simply read "Search" in the beta of iPhone OS 4, removing a reference to Apple's rival.

Less than 24 hours after Apple had revealed its preview of iPhone OS 4.0 and made it available to developers, hackers revealed they had successfully manage to run an unauthorized VNC client on the mobile operating system.

Developers working with the new iPhone Software 4.0 beta report the existence of a new background process named iChatAgent, the same process used by iChat on the Mac [Updated with alleged evidence of forward-facing camera as well]. Meanwhile, Note syncing via MobileMe and a handful of other enhancements have been highlighted in a series of screenshots.

Apple on Thursday said that this summer's iPhone Software 4.0 release will include long-awaited support for multitasking, which can be seen in action via the following video. [Updated with walk-through video].

Apple's plans for its forth-generation iPhone, due this summer, appear to include the addition of a camera flash that will improve the quality of snapshots and videos taken in dark scenarios or dimly-lit venues, AppleInsider has learned.

The upcoming 4.0 reference release of Apple's iPhone OS will deliver new support for running multiple concurrent third party apps, and allow users to switch between them using a windows management mechanism similar to one made popular on the company's Mac OS X operating system.

Apple this summer will go a long way towards silencing critics and catering to one of the most prevalent demands of its iPhone user base, when it introduces a multitasking solution through the handset's 4.0 software update that will finally allow several third party apps to run concurrently and in the background.